Clattaniolo
by I.C. Weener
Summary: Dangerously cheesy.


Medb flew backwards screaming from the magical explosion and crashed onto the street in an exhausted heap. Half a block away, Rin crawled up from her knees with a scowl on her face and shook the road gravel out of her raven twintails.

Rin stared down at the dazed and virtually motionless Medb with death and hatred searing across her furrowed brow. She was already plotting out her next countermove in this mystic game of chess in back of her head.

The circle on the back of her right hand resonated bright green near her face as she channeled her supernatural energy. She focused her will into making a single small artifact appear in her raised fingers. Its striking yellowish-orange hue stood out easily from her soft pink nails. Its texture was sandy and hollow, covered in a layer of soft golden chalk that would crumble from the faintest touch. It was shaped like a tiny waxing moon.

It looked like a Cheeto.

"That's the last time you'll try turning me into your personal Crest purse," Rin murmured in bitter outrage under her breath. She was slightly bending forward and holding her left palm on the front of her lower pelvis in tingling discomfort, nursing a spot where the end of her red sweater stretched over the band of her black miniskirt. She meditated with an annoyed look on her face to get her body's frenzied magical defenses back to their normal working order, shuddering at the mere thought of looking down and seeing three or four of Medb's whitish-pinkish tributes struggling for a mana source like living pastel confetti in a puddle of clear droplets on the pavement between her shoes.

Her trained magical resistance had been able to resist the demonic binding when the attack hit, but some of those gross squiggly things had gotten more than a little too close for comfort and she wasn't sure how much longer her inside business would have held up. She couldn't believe she was a Magus adept and this pompous pink-haired renegade Servant summoned by God knows what dweeb almost got the better of her. Perhaps Sakura would have better luck seizing the Rin reservoir when it was her turn to try, someday.

Rin stubbornly grunted before she tossed the artifact in her hand down the block toward her opponent. The porous yellow crescent expanded as it traveled in the air, freakishly expanding into a gigantic form with a thousand flaking yellow legs and a body that writhed like a snake. When the fully summoned demon landed ten feet in front of its target, it impacted the ground with the force of a falling building and made the entire street tremble.

Medb slowly sat up wincing in pain in her smoking crater. She heard the intense hissing and growling above her head as a large wavy shadow stretched over her. She looked at the hell beast sitting on its two hundred hind legs with its segmented body curled roughly into an S shape. Nacho sauce drooled from its gaping lamprey mouth.

Medb's eyes widened in a helpless horrified gasp. In a single blink, the monstrosity lunged forward and the white queen was no more.

"See how you like it, cheesytits," Rin mumbled ruthlessly as she turned her back. She strutted away in a bad mood and didn't even bother to stay for the magic show.

The giant caterpillar uncurled and stretched in a straight line on the street. Medb could be seen only as a struggling lump stuck somewhere near the middle section of its lengthy leathery anatomy. Its whole body began to glow the color of sunrise.

The insides of the cheddar chupacabra could undergo a wicked and arcane form of pasteurization that deeply affected any biological forms that were too weak to escape its giant body. Medb had tried to get worms into Rin in the ultimate display of dominance. Rin had gotten the Medb into the worm.

The radiant glowing ceased and the creature slowly crawled forward. Its tail end opened like a ring of asiago being cut down the center, releasing the creature's single prisoner through a series of oscillating muscle contractions. This process could be described as the creature either expelling waste matter or delivering its offspring, but it probably a little combination of both.

Medb was left lying weakly on her side drenched in a hearty and pungent-smelling river of warm curdled milk. She sat up on her hip and held her fist to her mouth in a fit of coughing. Whatever was left of her white combat coat was covered in a thicker coat of magic dairy grime, obscuring most of her features. She shook her head and rubbed her right temple to fight off the aches and dizziness banging in the space between her ears.

With its hideous conjuration complete, the giant worm dissolved into a million twinkling particles like fireflies. Its presence faded and returned to a state of invisible residual mana, leaving Medb by herself in her damp predicament.

A group of Servants under the same allegiance of Medb ran down the street opposite from where Rin had made her exit. Medb was climbing back to her wobbly feet when the cavalry finally arrived.

The team represented the greatest sorcerers and champions of their own respective times. It was comprised of Merlin, Ozymandias, Caesar, Gilgamesh, and some dude who probably could have been an anime stand-in for the Kurgan from Highlander. They were too late to save their empress, but they had plenty of time to watch her dry off.

Medb was standing with her eyes closed, her head lowered, and her side profile pointed toward them. Her overcoat was made of thinly cut Swiss cheese. The revealing blouse underneath looked like it was decorated with tassels of shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano. Her short skirt was divided into two pale yellow flaps of provolone, one hanging below her waist in the front and one hanging over her back thighs. Her skin was of an oddly creamy pigment, and her pointed crown was elegantly crafted out of a single wedge of smoked gouda.

Medb turned toward her delayed support as they stood frozen in shock. Her lips were curled in a subdued but widening grin.

"What's the matter, boys? Looking for a little _**calcium**_?" Her teeth gleamed like menacing pearls. Her eyes spun in wild yellow wheels. She threw out her arm and summoned her magic weapon: a stringy whip-rapier with a hilt fashioned to resemble a platinum bottle of Cheez Whiz.

The Servants who hadn't been Rin-formulated suddenly found themselves caught with their collected spiritual pants down. Merlin forgot the Charm of Making. Ozymandias questioned every choice he had ever made. Caesar felt betrayed, again. The Kurgan was losing his head.

Before anyone could decide what to do, Medb dashed toward them with the speed of a mouse determined to get the first bite.

* * *

 _Author's note: I like to think all of my stories involving Rin are taking place in a shared universe and she's like a flipped around version of the Sword in the Stone. Everyone around Rin is in a war trying to gain control of her Rinspace with their different strains of creepy crawlers, but only one is destined to succeed. I mean, it kinda goes along with official lore._


End file.
